For the past decade, researchers have tried to reprogram the identity of all kinds of cell types. Heart cells are one of the most sought-after cells in regenerative medicine because researchers anticipate that they may help ...

Scientists at The University of Texas at Austin and the University of California at San Francisco have revealed how a type of cancer-causing virus outwits the human body's immune response. The discovery might help explain ...

New research from the Gladstone Institutes for the first time provides strong evidence that HIV latency is controlled not by infected host cells, but by the virus itself. This fundamentally changes how scientists perceive ...

Researchers from Children's National Medical Center have found that an alternate, "escape" replication process triggered by apoptosis—the process of cell death or "cell suicide"—appears to be common in human herpesviruses ...

(Medical Xpress) -- Herpesviruses are thrifty reproducers -- they only send off their most infectious progeny to invade new cells. Two Cornell virologists recently have discovered how these viruses determine which progeny ...

Infections due to the sexually transmitted bacterium Chlamydia trachomatis often remain unnoticed. The pathogen is not only a common cause of female infertility; it is also suspected of increasing the risk of abdominal cancer. ...

Parasitic bacteria were the first cousins of the mitochondria that power cells in animals and plants – and first acted as energy parasites in those cells before becoming beneficial, according to a new University of Virginia ...

(Medical Xpress)—The feared Legionella pneumophila is responsible for legionellosis, an infectious disease that can lead to pneumonia. To infect humans, this pathogen has developed a complex method that allows it to camouflage ...

Host (biology)

In biology, a host is an organism that harbors a virus or parasite, or a mutual or commensal symbiont, typically providing nourishment and shelter. In botany, a host plant is one that supplies food resources and substrate for certain insects or other fauna. Examples of such interactions include a cell being host to a virus, a legume plant hosting helpful nitrogen-fixing bacteria, and animals as hosts to parasitic worms, e.g. nematodes.